Art of Fighting 3/System

Mechanics

Basic Mechanics

Movement

As with any fighting game, any video game in general, you can move your character with whatever your left stick is, whether it be an arcade lever, analog stick or D-pad. As a 2D fighting game, your character can move left or right, have them crouch or jump either backwards, upwards, or forwards by pressing in the respective direction.
Besides walking forwards or backwards, your character can dash forwards or backwards by pressing forward twice or backwards twice.

Notes on Walking

Universal walk startup is 0 frames, so most characters will start walking instantly as soon as you push a direction.

Wang features 3 frames of startup lag before he can walk either forward or backwards.
Sinclair has a delayed forward walk of 9 frames, but not a delayed backwards walk.

Forward                           Backwards
dots/F | Character                dots/F | Character
------------------------------    ----------------------------
    0f | All other characters         0f | All other characters
    3f |                          1f | 
    9f |                          3f |

Notes on Dashing

Robert is unable to dash cancel backdash at all.
Even if he attacks, Wyler will still travel the full distance of his backdash. Despite jumping backwards to backdash, he is still considered grounded so he will perform grounded attacks.
Unlike the Fatal Fury games, backdashes are not fully invincible and you are still left wide open to be punished during them, though this hardly happens in the first place.

Dashing Total Frames

Total animation frames until character is able to crouch again/is no longer a dash cancel.

Forward Dash Frames               Backdash Frames
dots/F | Character                dots/F | Character
------------------------------    ----------------------------
   21f |                     16f | 
   24f |                         19f | 
   26f |                         24f | 
   28f |                         27f | 
   31f |                         28f | 
   32f |                         33f | 
   34f |                         36f | 
   38f |                         44f | 
   41f |                         49f |

Crouching and Restand

To crouch, simply hold down in any direction. This allows your character to duck certain attacks and also puts them in a state known as "Full Crouch" which has access to its own attacks.

If the character is performing their crouch animation, they are still considered standing. If you push a button during this animation, they will perform the normal crouch attack as opposed to its FC variant.
The character must finish their crouch animation for them to be in FC.
Not all crouch animations are equal in length.

When your character leaves crouch by letting go of down, they perform a restand animation where their actions will be restricted until they finish the animation. When performing the restand, your character is no longer considered in a Full Crouch state, but they still need to finish the restand animation to be considered standing again.

Not all restand animations are equal in length.
You can also leave FC by directly going into a jump or performing some attacks.
Rush combo attacks, specials, 5C attacks, 4C parries, taunts, crouch dashing, and command normals all allow a character to cancel their FC into a different animation to immediately re-enter a standing state.

In order to use a command normal with a diagonal input (such as 3A) to immediately exit FC, you must first lift the stick up from pressing down and then into the diagonal direction you wish to press. If you attempt to do the command normal while you're still in FC, aka holding down still, you will instead get a FC attack.

Each character has a different crouch height, too. An attack one character might be able to duck, another character may still get hit by.

Some low attacks help to duck certain moves, too. Refer to the respective character pages for more info.

Crouch Animation Frames          Restand Animation Frames
dots/F | Character                dots/F | Character
-------------------------------   ----------------------------
    4f |                          5f | 
    6f |              6f | 
    7f |                  7f | 
   11f |                          8f | 
   15f |                         12f | 
                                     15f |

Turn Around Animations

Standing Turn Around

All turn around animations are 8 frames in length.
Turn around happens when, as you would probably expect, whenever you jump above the opponent or otherwise move to the side they aren't facing.
Your character is completely incapable of doing anything during the turn around animation, not even blocking. While in the long run this affects almost nothing, it's a small reason why cross-ups, however rare, can become unblockable.
With very few, specific exceptions to this rule (such as Wang's 5AB), any time a character is waking up and they're facing away from the opponent - aka, their head is pointing towards them, the character will auto-correct to face the opponent without having to enter the turn-around animation in the middle of their recovery.

Crouch Turn Around

If you're crouching, and the opponent jumps over you, just like when you're standing, your character will immediately stand up to play their small turn around animation where they will then go back into a crouching state if you're still holding down. This will, however, also mean the character has to replay their crouching transition animation.

Jumping

Your character can jump by holding up, up-back, or up-forwards.
This game features hopping, a smaller jump that covers less distance but leaves your character in the air for less time, too. To perform a hop, instead of holding up, you need to tap up instead.

The window to perform a hop is until the character leaves their jump startup animation. For most characters, this means a 5f window to quickly press up and then let go afterwards. Say the character has a 5f jump startup, if you let go of up within that 5f window, you'll perform a hop. If you hold up for 6f or more, at which point the character will leave their startup animation and be airborne, it will perform a normal jump.

In Wyler's case, this means a 7f window due to 7f startup instead.

Notes on Jumping

Jumps feature 5 frames of startup before the player is considered airborne, but not all jump landings are equal in frame count.

Wyler's normal jump startup is 7 frames as opposed to 5 frames. Jin's double jump also features 0 frames of startup.

If Wyler performs a hop, his jump startup goes from 7 frames of a normal jump to 11 frames of startup instead.

During the landing recovery of a jump, your character is completely incapable of doing anything, even blocking, other than a "jump cancel.

If a character is performing their crouching animation, and the player chooses to hold up during it, this will cancel the crouch entirely to enter the character's jumping animation, without having to enter the restand animation.

Jump Total Frames                 Hop Total Frames
dots/F | Character                dots/F | Character
------------------------------    ----------------------------
   50f |                 39f | 
   51f |                         40f | 
   52f |                     41f | 
   54f |                         44f | 
   55f |                     46f | 
   60f |                         49f |

Jump Startup                      Jump Recovery
dots/F | Character                dots/F | Character
-------------------------------   ----------------------------
    0f |  (double jump)          5f  | 
    5f | All other characters        6f  | 
    7f |  (jump)                 8f  | 
   11f |  (hop)                  11f | 
                                     16f |

Notes on Jump Cancels

Most but not all characters can do a jump cancel of sorts - they can cancel the landing recovery of their jumps early to initiate another jump. This is performed simply by continuing to hold up to jump. Keep in mind that there is no real purpose to using this, other than if you need to jump again sooner rather than later. Gameplay wise it changes almost nothing.

Landing recovery is the only thing that can be jump cancelled.
When performed, the character will retain the same 5f jump startup like if they jumped as normal.

All characters except Robert and Wang can jump cancel on frame 4 of their landing recovery.
Robert can jump cancel on frame 5 of landing recovery, while Wang cannot jump cancel at all.

Attacking

The game provides three attack buttons, and a fourth button for taunting: A, B, C, and D, the 4 buttons that the Neo Geo uses for all its games.

A button is used for punch attacks.
B button is used for kick attacks.
C button doesn't have as much use, but it's used for strong knockdown attacks, parries, throws, and whatever special/super attacks use the C button.
The A and B buttons are what you will most use for attacking, whereas the C button has its uses but is more situational.

There are also several different types of attacks that each have their own properties.

Launching is the biggest property an attack can have, as it allows you to be able to start juggle combos, or even extend standing combos.
Attacks lead to different types of knockdowns and effects depending both on the attack and whether it's a counter hit or not.
Sometimes an attack also has a different property based on the direction the opponent is blocking.
Special attacks are tied to the green Spirit meter, which affects how effective special attacks are based on how much meter is remaining.

Attacks can even cancel into one another, whether as a gatling system or as chains known as rush combos - similarly known as target combos.

Several more notes on attacks can be found under Esoterics.

Notes on the Gatling System

This game features an extremely basic version of gatling strings, where you can cancel 5A into either 5B or 5C, removing the (almost non-existent) recovery frames of 5A to combo into either button.

Rush Combos

Chains, otherwise known as rush combos, are a series of moves that chain into one another that allow players to either perform simple standing combos or extend juggle combos.

Rush combos have different windows and timings when you're allowed to cancel into the next move you want to cancel into, which will be listed in its respective description on the character pages, though this usually only matters if you wish to delay the rush combo.
Attacks in a rush combo can be delayed for mixup potential, or to help continue juggle combos when needed for certain combos.
When performing rush combos, you have to continue holding the given direction in order for the attack to come out, unless specified.

An example: a universal rush combo is 6AAB. For all three attacks to come out, you must hold forwards for the whole duration of the rush combo as you press all three buttons in succession. Hold forward, press A, and as you are still holding forward, press A again after the first attack, and then press B after the second attack. If you don't hold forward, the attacks will not come out.

Rush combo attacks are the only truly cancellable attacks in the game, however you can only cancel them into/from other rush combo attacks based on the character's respective flowchart.
You cannot cancel rush combos into special moves, throws, other command normals that don't chain into/from anything, 4C parries, or anything of the sort. If you're in the middle of a rush combo, you must either let the current attack finish its animation to exit the rush combo early, or continue the rest of the rush combo.

An example: Ryo is doing the 6AAB rush combo. He is currently performing 6A[A], the second of three attacks in the rush combo. However, in order to leave this rush combo, he must either let the 6A[A] animation play out in its entirety to end the rush combo early, or cancel it into 6AA[B] within the attack's given frame window to move on to the next attack and finish the rush combo that way.
Rush combo enders cannot be cancelled at all, much like everything else in the game.

Universal Throws

Whenever you're up close to an opponent, pressing forward plus C will allow you to throw the opponent for a big chunk of damage, where they'll then be knocked down next to you for a free pursuit and okizeme.

Throws universally deal 960 damage, with Wang's dealing 1344 damage and Lenny's dealing 800 damage.
Throws cannot hit opponents in Full Crouch. It can, however, still hit during the crouch and restand animations.
Throws cannot hit opponents during either the jump startup or during the jump itself, but can hit during the landing recovery.
Throws can also ignore 4C parry invulnerability, breaking the parry.
Some, but not all attacks, have throw invulnerability. It's not true invulnerability, but because of the attacker's changing hurtboxes that prevent the throw hitbox from connecting, some attacks can punish throw attempts regardless.
Sinclair cannot throw, while Wyler cannot be thrown. Sinclair performs 5C instead, and Wyler will instead stagger the opponent if they attempt to throw him.
Jin and Wang's throws do not side-switch. When trying to throw Wyler, both players remain on the same side due to the stagger effect that takes place.
If both players attempt to throw each other on the same frame, player 1 will always win against simultaneous throws.

Wakeup Low Kicks

Whenever you're knocked down, after you start to wake back up, you can perform a wakeup low kick by pressing down and either A or B. This will let your character perform the Full Crouch version of their low kick with a catch: they will now have a brief amount of invulnerable frames to safely perform the kick (testing for exact amount of frames needed).

Taunts

Pressing D initiates a Taunt, where you decrease your opponent's Spirit. How long the taunt goes for determines how much Spirit is reduced. It is not until the Taunt is either interrupted or cancelled that the Spirit is reduced, a big (and important) departure from the previous AOF games where Spirit was depleted as soon as you pushed the button.

You can cancel taunts manually and still give a Spirit reduction. To cancel a Taunt, do any other action like moving, jumping, or attacking and you will cancel the taunt. You can also cancel into the Taunt itself from a backdash and forward dash, however this will stop you in your tracks.
If you're Wyler (who is banned), his backdash will still travel the full distance even if you Taunt, since he hops backwards instead.
The minimum amount of spirit taken away from a taunt is 681 points of spirit as player 1, whereas player 2 takes away 682 points of spirit meter.

Desperation

When a player's health reaches 1024 points of health (25%) or less, their character will begin blinking orange to indicate they can use their SDM, or Super Desperation Move. This move can be used an indefinite amount of times so long as you have the Spirit to expend for it. This however also leaves them vulnerable to Ultimate KOs. Desperation also gives a very slight damage boost as well (+20%~).

Ultimate KO

If you land a super on an opponent with 542 points of health or less (which is a little over 1/8th of their life bar), you win the game regardless of round count. This is also the reason the game follows a FT3 format in tournaments.

Intermediate Mechanics

Raz

Otherwise known as the 4C Parry, Raz allows a character to temporarily catch either a high or mid attack while standing, and if successful, the opponent will be flipped over into a knockdown, side-switch with the player, and give the standing player free reign to Pursuit and/or setup okizeme.

Raz parries cannot counter low attacks or aerial attacks. It cannot dodge projectiles either.
All super attacks will bypass Raz, so if you try to Raz parry a super attack, you will still be hit.

Spirit

This is the green meter below your health bar. In order to use special moves or supers, you need to spend Spirit. Specials usually cost around 25% meter, and SDMs all cost 75% meter.

The game will manually restore one point of spirit meter every frame, or 60 points in a second.
You can recharge Spirit by either blocking hits or manually charging back up by holding down any button. This raises the rate of recharge to 24 points of spirit per frame, or 1440 points a second.

You can also recharge spirit while you are knocked down on the ground, however the rate of recharge is slower at 9 points per frame, or 540 points per second. This only applies to normal and quick knockdowns.

For one frame, off of a normal or quick knockdown, the first time you land on the ground before bouncing back up very briefly, you can hold the button down to restore 9 points of spirit since you are considered grounded on this frame. However, after that you must wait till your character is fully grounded before the 9 points of recharge rate begins to take effect again.

When blocking an attack, the amount of spirit restored from successfully blocking it is equal to that attack's damage plus one point (because of each frame restoring one point of spirit meter).

This does not apply to special moves or supers, as those restore their own individual amounts instead.

Just like the health bar, there are exactly 4096 points of Spirit meter for every character. Each special move in the game costs a different number of points to use, and don't always follow rounded percentages.
There are three types of Spirit meter: Green, Blue, and Purple.

Green (4096-2048, or 100%~50%) is the ordinary Spirit meter
Blue (2047-1024, or 50%~25%) is when special moves will still come out, but deal less damage and maybe change slightly
Purple (1023-0, or 25%~0%) is where special moves will act differently and become significantly weaker, if do anything at all

The damage lost and the effect it has on hit depends on the attack itself. There is no correlation to the type of meter and how much the damage output changes across all special moves.

For example, Ryo's Fireball will always come out on Green and Blue, but in Blue meter it will deal less damage. In Purple meter, it will never travel past his fist, although it still has a weak hitbox if the opponent is point blank range.

Pursuits

Whenever the opponent is knocked down for whatever reason, the standing player can perform and OTG attack called the Pursuit. By pressing 3A or 3B, the character will perform their universal Pursuit attack and deal an extra amount of damage to the opponent. If done too late, however, it will whiff as the opponent is standing back up, leaving the player open to be punished.

3A/B Pursuits universally deal 256 damage.

Karman's instant pursuit is an exception, dealing 320 damage instead.
Since Wang's hit twice, he can deal either 256 or 512 damage.

Some, but not all characters have attacks that can also Pursuit, besides the universal 3A/B pursuit. A couple characters have a move that they can only perform as a pursuit.
Pursuit speeds vary between character, but all pursuits are active for only one frame (as far as we know), so speed only affects how quickly the pursuit lands.
During the startup frames and the frames where the character is considered "attacking OTG," not to be confused with the active frames, they have full invulnerability. This switches off as they're recovering from the pursuit.
The pursuit can be done both far away and while the opponent is airborne, so try to avoid whiffing it.
Pursuits cannot hit standing opponents, or opponents that are recovering from a normal and quick knockdown.

Soft and stagger knockdowns can still be hit by a pursuit, however. Refer to Recovery for more details.
Stagger knockdowns are unique in that they start as staggers then transition into soft knockdowns while following the rules of both, so pursuits will only land in the soft knockdown phase of the stagger knockdown, aka the second half.

Notes on Pursuit Frame Advantage:

Not only do pursuits vary in the damage they deal and the speed that they come out at, but they also vary in frame advantage, so no pursuit is one and the same in how plus or minus you are after landing said pursuit.
To make matters more complicated, not only are pursuits different in frame advantage, but they also vary in frame advantage per character.
This effectively means that regardless of who you play, you have to memorize the specific frame advantage for each pursuit your character has against every matchup in the game, including mirror matchups.

Jin's pursuits are one egregious example. 5AB is plus against some characters, but against others it is minus to the point of being punishable on hit, thus making a pursuit you don't want to use against said matchups.
His 66B pursuit as well is identical in frame advantage to 5AB as a pursuit, but the big difference is that all advantages are 6 frames less than 5AB.

Recovery

It may seem like there is a surefire way of teching in this game to recover as fast as humanly possible, but recovery is determined by a number of factors.

What type of knockdown it is
Whether the downed player is mashing buttons (and the left stick) to recover quicker
Whether the downed player gets hit by a Pursuit or not

All knockdown types have a different set duration that the opponent remains downed for, without factoring in button mashing to tech out faster.
When waking up, there are also slightly different rules to how Pursuits work.

In a normal or quick knockdown, if the opponent starts to stand back up from the knockdown, they receive i-frames and can no longer be hit by pursuits, either.
All other knockdown types, at any point during the knockdown, the opponent can still be hit by a pursuit, but are immune to regular attacks while waking up.

Notes on Wakeups

Not all characters have equal wakeup times, however the differences are exceptionally minor.

Everyone except for Robert, Sinclair, and Wyler have 16 frames of wakeup recovery from a normal or quick knockdown. The three characters instead have 17f wakeup recovery.
Everyone except for Lenny has an inconsistent number of wakeup frames during a soft knockdown, but all total 58 frames of being in an SKD state regardless. For Lenny, she's in the SKD state for 59 frames instead.

Full Crouch

Whenever a character presses down, they play out a crouching animation, and when they restand, that too plays its own animation. More importantly, whenever the crouch animation finishes, the character is considered to be in a "full crouch" state, and when they finish the standing animation, they are back in a normal standing state. Full Crouch refers to a character having access to slightly different lows that they don't have access to normally.

Not all crouch and restand animations are equal in frame count.
When trying to attack during the crouching animation, normal crouch normals will still come out as opposed to the FC versions - the character must finish their animation first.
Restand no longer sets the character in a Full Crouch state, but they are not in a full standing state either until they finish the restand animation or cancel it.

Characters cannot walk, dash, throw, perform another crouching animation, or perform 4C parries while in their restand animation until the animation finishes. They can do everything else, however.
When performing the restand animation, because the character is no longer in a Full Crouch state, they can immediately perform a standing low attack the same frame the restand animation starts, even though they're not fully standing yet.

For example, Lenny's normal 2A where she whips at the opponent's feet can be done while standing up or in her crouching animation. When she's fully crouched however, she can only do Full Crouch 2A. However, when she restands, as soon as she does she is able to perform normal 2A all over again even though she hasn't finished her standing animation yet. For most characters the restand window is tiny, so utilizing this in an actual match is quite difficult, if it even offers meaningful benefits in the first place to justify the tight execution.

Projectiles

Projectiles act like they do in any other fighting game, but in Art of Fighting 3, you can nullify projectiles by punching them similar to how you can nullify a fireball with another fireball.

Just about any attack can nullify projectiles, but there are a few notes to consider below.
Ryo and Robert's Haoh Shou Kou Ken projectiles, while difficult and frankly foolish to dare attempt, can be interrupted by normal attacks. Jin's 4A is most consistent at doing this.
Rody's projectile cannot be interrupted by normal means, only through the use of another projectile can it be interrupted.

If interrupted, Rody's projectile will "absorb" the hit, meaning it loses its active hitbox. This also means that Rody is stuck in his projectile animation until either the baton returns to him or he is hit, however.

Advanced Mechanics

Character States

While not an advanced mechanic in of itself, or really much of a mechanic in the first place, this section will identify all the possible states your character can be in during a match to help your understanding of how some mechanics work and to identify exactly what is possible in that state.

Standing: Refers to when the character is standing in a neutral position, or otherwise moving around on the ground
Crouching: Refers to when the character is performing their crouching animation but is not in the Full Crouch state
Full Crouch: Refers to when the character is completely crouched on the ground
Restand: Refers to how long it takes for a character to leave the Full Crouch state into the Standing state
Jumping: Refers to when the character is about to perform a jump; the jump startup
Airborne: Refers to when the character is in the air
Landing: Refers to when the character lands on the ground from a jump; the landing recovery
Juggle: Refers to when the character is falling to the ground and is unable to act due to being hit or launched
Knockdown: Refers to when the character is on the ground from either a normal or quick knockdown. This can also be used for soft and stagger knockdowns but is mainly used for the former two types
Recovery: Refers to when the character is waking up from a knockdown and is thus recovering. In a soft knockdown, they aren't in this state until halfway through the state or unless they get hit by a pursuit before reaching it
Turn-Around: Refers to when the character is performing the turn-around animation, where their controls are completely locked up
Desperation: Refers to when the character is flashing orange/red and is in their desperation state; has low health

Launching

Some moves will launch the opponent up into the air by themselves, opening the room up for a juggle combo. Several moves, however, will launch on counter hit. Crouching will nullify some launchers if they are "wrong blocked." Cross-up attacks can also Counter Hit launch when they hit. Also, if the opponent is airborne for whatever reason, all attacks will deal an extra 25% damage boost by default, ignoring counter hit bonuses. There are four different types of launches: two normal launches and two counter hit launches, though they don't make a very big difference:

Normal launch has the opponent floating up in the air like usual during a juggle. Almost all launchers do this type of launch.
Screw launch has the opponent spinning midair while launched, which greatly alters their fall speed depending on how heavy the character is. The lighter, the slower they fall, the heavier, the faster they fall. Only certain attacks can do this type of launch, and the spinning affect ends once the opponent is hit by another attack.
Counter hit launch happens when any attack hits the opponent as a counterhit, assuming it doesn't have another property instead. Some, but not all counter hit launches lead to quick knockdowns instead of a normal knockdown, where the opponent recovers quicker than a normal knockdown.

Low counter hit launch is what most attacks do on counter hit. It lets you get a basic juggle in if your character recovers fast enough. Since it launches low, there's not very much room to launch.
High counter hit launch is the effect that launchers deal when they counter hit. It launches the opponent to the top of the screen on hit.

Wrong Blocking

Wrong Blocking is a very unusual mechanic in Art of Fighting 3. As mentioned by the Launching mechanic, Crouching will nullify some launchers as a result of this mechanic, and instead of being launched, the opponent will be put into a Stagger state where they step backwards and are open for combo-ability, with varying results depending on the attack and characters in the match.

The way it works, if you are crouching (2), but not holding downback (1), the move will still play out as normal, but if you are holding downback (1), then the move properties change.
This applies to holding down (2) as well with a couple select attacks, where simply crouching changes the effect on hit as opposed to holding downback (1).
Note that not all moves will wrongblock.

Knockdowns

There are four types of knockdowns, five if you count stagger by itself:

Hard knockdown when the character has to manually wakeup from any move that knocks down. They can do a wakeup attack after standing up. Also just known as knockdown, or KD.

On wakeup, they are immune to attacks and pursuits.
Any time the opponent is hit in the air with any attack or is juggled, they will always end up in a KD state upon landing, unless the attack used causes a QKD state.

Because of this same property, resets are impossible to perform since the opponent always ends up knocked down, unless you intentionally reset grounded with rush combos, in which case it's still risky going for.

Quick knockdown is identical to a hard knockdown, only the player recovers much faster by default. Activated only by some, but not all counter hit launches, and when certain attacks connect with the opponent in midair.

An alternative name is called a "Counter Hit Knockdown" or an "Airborne Knockdown" due to being activated only on counter hits and airborne opponents respectively.
Weak attacks, such as 5A or 5B, are the universal moves that activate QKD, whereas everything else does a normal KD instead.

Those same attacks also have different recovery times, too. 5A recovers almost instantly, whereas 5B recovers a little later, but not as long as a normal KD recovery, for example.

Soft knockdown where the character will briefly fall on their butt, but then soon wake back up. They cannot do a wakeup attack but are still jugglable (before they land) and can be hit by Pursuits.

After landing, they are immune to attacks. This is also when they are now vulnerable to Pursuits; attempting to pursuit before they land will lead to a command normal instead.

Stagger where the character is pushed back by the blow of the attack, but doesn't fall on the ground into an OTG state. They can be comboed in this state, and attacks that stagger on hit will instead knockdown when they connect on an opponent who is already in a staggered state.
Stagger knockdown where the character will be staggered, then fall back onto their butt before recovering, in other words a stagger into a soft knockdown.

Like a soft knockdown they can still be hit by an OTG and can be juggled before they hit the ground, but once they do, they are immune to normal attacks. They can still be hit by pursuits, however.

Knockdown Frame Data

Normal knockdowns feature 16 frame recovery animations (where the character is immune to all attacks). Robert, Sinclair, and Wyler are the exception to this rule at 17 frame recovery animations.
Staggers are all 43 frames in length (56 frames if you count the 13 frames that play when the attack connects with the opponent).
Soft knockdowns are 58 frames in length total, with Lenny as the exception at 59 frames.

Hidden Normal Knockdown State Value

Disclaimer: This section is currently only theory. Whether it is 100% accurate or not remains unknown, and will probably remain unknown until someone can debug the game and hopefully find a definitive answer.

Normal and quick knockdowns have an invisible value that determines how long a character remains on the ground for in the knockdown state. Each individual attack also has its own invisible value tied to the attack that determines how long a player remains in the knockdown state when hit by this attack, whether by natural knockdown, launch, or by counter hit inflicted knockdowns.

The minimum frames of length the knockdown state can last for is 24 frames.
The maximum frames of length the knockdown state can last for is 109 frames.
An example of the differences between knockdown state frame counts is Ryo's 3 launchers. 3A has a total length of 48 frames when used by itself. Both 64BC and 28A have a total length of 109 when used by themselves, the max value.
Karman's 5AB launcher by comparison is the full 109 frames of KD state length by default.
A third example, Kasumi's 66A > 4B launcher when used by itself estimates around 60-70 frames of KD state length.

This serves as a possible explanation for why some attacks are quick knockdowns as opposed to regular knockdowns. These invisible values determine not only the length of the knockdown state but also how much mashing is required to tech recover from it. If no tech recovery is performed, the KD state ends as soon as the invisible value is depleted.
When performing a juggle combo, each individual attack added to the combo increases the length of this KD state value. However, the gains from these individual hits are so huge that there's basically no reason to calculate it.

If Ryo performs a 3A launcher, it results in 48 frames of the KD state. If he adds one jab into the combo, his 5A, this turns into 82 frames of KD state, a difference of 34 frames.
If Ryo uses the same launcher, and instead combos into his standing 5B kick, the KD state value changes into 108 frames of length, a 60 frame difference. This puts the value at only one frame away from reaching the maximum length of 109 frames, thus any attack afterwards will cap this value out.

Counter hits also affect the KD state value. By how big of a difference it makes remains unknown, but one example is Ryo's 3A launcher. If Ryo lands 3A as a counter hit, this results in a KD state value of 54 frames, a 6 frame increase.

While obvious, it should be noted that if hit by a pursuit, this nullifies the invisible value entirely and thus the opponent begins their KD state recovery after getting hit by pursuit.

Recovery from a knockdown is also tied to this invisible number, however the way it really works is both a mystery and inconsistent in following its own rules, thus different results occur across the board.

As a reminder, you recover off of a knockdown by rotating the left stick repeatedly.
You can only begin teching a knockdown as soon as you enter the knockdown state by landing onto the ground.
For each direction you push, this reduces the KD state value by 4 frames. In theory, this value of 4 gradually decreases the more directions you push, but this is where the rules begin to be inconsistent.

If you take Ryo's 3A launcher, enter the KD state and press one direction (any direction), this reduces the KD state value down to 44 frames. Press two directions, this brings it to 40 frames. However, press a third direction and for some reason, this value remains at 40 frames of length. But by pressing a fourth direction, the KD state value suddenly jumps below 30 frames of length.
Another weird instance of this is Ryo's 28A launcher. Press one direction and instead of lowering down to 105 frames as you would logically expect by subtracting 4, it instead reduces the KD state value to 104 frames. However, the next four directions pushed to tech the knockdown does nothing and keeps this value at 104. Press a sixth direction and this suddenly jumps to around 93-94 frames of the KD state value.

On a technical level, you could recover instantly every time since you could perform 7-8 full 360 circles a second. Each 360 circle input results in 8 directions pushed, and thus 8 different times the KD state value is reduced. :* This is, of course, humanly impossible to do it this fast and this consistently, however, so the true theoretical fastest a player can recover isn't entirely clear.

Why some knockdown states act differently compared to others or how much rotating the stick truly affects the value tied to it will require extensive labbing for each individual attack and perhaps even against each different character just to make completely sure the effects remain consistent, but even with all of that, this info will probably require debugging in order to define a concrete answer for all this frame data behaving the way it does.

Gravity

When characters are launched, they will have a certain "gravity" to them that makes it so they fall slightly faster or slower. Its effect on gameplay is small, but significant - it determines what juggles you can use against certain characters and how consistently they can be executed, or how the player must time the juggle for it to work. In other words, this affects a character's juggle resistance.

Gravity Weights Per Character

Heavy: Jin, Ryo
Moderately Heavy: Kasumi
Medium: Robert, Karman, Sinclair, Wang
Light: Lenny, Rody, Wyler

Counter Hits/Trades

Whenever an attack connects as a counter hit (mostly normals), the opponent will usually be sent into a juggle state after the counter hit and also receive extra damage (+20%~), regardless of the scenario. Opponents will be launched either low or high, depending on what attack the opponent used. As with any juggle state, combos are possible from this, but the juggle system itself is unchanged.

Counter hits can also lead to other properties, such as SKDs or STKDs.
Not all attacks guarantee counter hit benefits, but the majority of them do.
Launchers that land a counterhit will also launch twice as high than normal.
The extra damage is only applied to the initial hit, but the rest of the combo receives normal damage. Counterhit damage modifiers will not be applied if the opponent is already midair during the counterhit.
If both players trade, then the game will pause briefly and, because they are both considered counter hits, both players are launched up into the air.
Same rules apply where both players are launched to a certain height. The aftermath of these exchanges are a reset of neutral, but depending on how fast a player recovers, or the launch height they got, it's possible for that player to rush in closer to their opponent.

Even though it results in a hard knockdown, counterhits have their own "counterhit knockdown" where the player who was counterhit will recover faster than a regular hard knockdown

Strategy

Unblockable Setups

If you're playing one of the 7 characters with an unblockable super, it is possible to do unblockable setups off of knockdown. Unblockable setups take place when the player knocks the opponent down, and as the opponent is about to wake up, the player then starts their super. Because of the super's long active frames, and the opponent only able to recover in the same spot or with a low attack on wakeup, the super's active frames will catch the opponent the immediate frame they are standing again. It is even possible to do after a Pursuit, but the window is tighter and the opponent has a slight chance to counter back on wakeup.

Characters with unblockable supers: Karman, Lenny, Robert, Rody, Ryo, Sinclair, Wang
It is possible to interrupt unblockable setups on wakeup with a low kick, but success isn't guaranteed

Corner Cross-ups

The game allows any player to pick any character and jump right over the other character even if they're pushed into the corner as far back as they possibly can be (other than Wyler who is too large to jump over anyone anyways). This means anyone can cross-up in the corner if they have the means to do so, or otherwise create setups/side switch for whatever reason the player desires. This is most effective for Ryo whose Jump C is built specifically for cross-up scenarios.

Due to the inability to block at all during the turn around animation, this also means that cross-ups, however rare they actually happen, can become unblockable for 8 frames.

Delayable Strings

If you've played something like Virtua Fighter in particular, delayable strings let you create freeform mixups in the rush combos each character has. How long you can delay a move in a rush combo depends on the character and the move, so it's not a consistent frame window like Virtua Fighter. Rather than immediately follow up with the entire rush combo, a player can choose to intentionally delay it and score a free hit when the opponent doesn't expect it, if the player knows how long they can delay a given move.

Dash Cancels

All dashes can be immediately cancelled with jumping, attacking, or taunting. Other than to stop your character right in their tracks if you need to, it allows players to create whiff scenarios, setups where they can taunt for free, make pokes safer in general, escape pressure, close the gap without getting too close, and loosen up mobility a little to make it a little smoother. For example, Kasumi can backdash, have the opponent whiff a normal they tried to use, and immediately cancel the dash into her 5AB for a free long-ranged poke punish.

It is not possible to cancel dashes with crouching and in a very small number of specific examples.
Robert cannot cancel his backdash at all.

Crouch Dashing

While holding down to crouch, if the player presses down forward twice (33) in quick succession or downback twice (11), they will instantly leave crouch to perform a dash. This not only serves as a way to leave crouch and get on the offensive without having to sit through the crouch animation, but also allows players to access their crouching normals / diagonal command normals just a bit faster. This even allows players to completely bypass accidental dash attack inputs; inputting 5A for example during a crouch dash will do exactly that: 5A. It will not perform the dash attack for the given button. If you want to dash forward and attack ASAP, but not use a dash attack, perform a crouch dash and keep holding down so as to override the input reader and prevent it from buffering a dash attack.

While it's definitely possible to do a diagonal command normal as a normal dash cancel, it can't be done too early or else the game reads it as a dash attack. It also has to be done with a clean input of down forward or downback, or else the input reader does a different attack instead.
Rush Combo Attacks and special moves also allow characters to exit crouch instantly.

Notes on Unusual Input Buffering During Crouch Dashing:

There is a very strange, and perhaps unexplainable, phenomenon regarding how inputs are read during a crouch dash. More specifically, an unusually long buffer window with forward crouch dashes that backwards crouch dashes don't have.

With the way crouch dashing works, the game reads the inputs as [2323] and [2121] respectively, since you're alternating between both down and diagonally down in one direction in order to register said inputs as a dash input to initiate the dash.

Logically speaking, this also means that the last [23] and [21] should therefore buffer as stored inputs for a special move. However, this is where the input reader starts acting unusual.

Let's take Jin as an easy example since he has a 4A, 6A, 214A and a 236A. If you do backwards CD, the inputs will read [2121]. You may think you can buffer into 214A, but regardless of whether you reset your stick to neutral (212154A) or not (21214A), the input reader will act as if the [2121] never happened and only give you 4A.
However... If you do the exact same thing but for the opposite direction - in this case forwards - your inputs will read [2323]. If you reset your stick to neutral, it will perform 5A, and the same applies to backwards CD. If you reset the stick to neutral but then push forwards and A (232356A), the game will give you the 236A special move.

On top of this, if you go straight to forwards after the CD (23236A), you will also get a special move then, because this time the game registers the [2323] inputs from before.
The [2323] inputs are not only buffered but they are buffered for a very long time - till the very end of the forward dash as far as this info is known. This essentially means you can perform a forward CD, hold 6, and wait for a brief moment till the end of the dash, and as long as you press A before the dash ends while holding 6 (or press 6 if you reset your stick to neutral), this will still give you the special move, buffered nearly an entire second ahead of time.
This also means that Jin (or any character) is unable to perform a 6A off of a FCD, only 5A. Attempting to do 6A will result in 236A.
If you want to perform 214A off of a backwards CD, you must do the full 214 input because of the fact that the input reader disregards the previous inputs. In other words, to do a 214A special in BCD form, it would read as [2121214A] or [21215214A].

This applies to the right side as well, just flip the directions and it still applies.
Whether this actually affects the game's meta or not is unknown, albeit unlikely given most 236A/B attacks are fireball type attacks, or a reflector, with fireballs having slower startup that makes doing this input storing pointless. A case could be made for Karman storing a surprise 236B attack against the opponent, or more notably Kasumi delaying a Kasane Ate off of crouch dash to pressure the opponent while also closing the gap.

General Strategy

There are three main factors to being a good player in Art of Fighting 3:

Whiff/block punishment and counter hits
Matchup knowledge
System mastery

Being able to whiff punish means scoring many more counter hits, which means more damage and more juggle combos. Block punishing is also good due to the universally lengthy recovery animations, but hardly results in bonus damage or any counter hits.
Knowing your matchups helps tremendously when you know exactly when and how to create whiff scenarios, as well as what combos work on which characters to optimize damage and always keep your momentum.
System mastery means being able to manage meter, counter hits, knowing how knockdowns work, pursuits, and all nuances and mechanics well to the point your game knowledge surpasses that of the other player. You know how and why situations occur the way they do and can react accordingly.

Esoterics

Damage Output Math

Universal health value is 4096 points of health. Spirit is also universally 4096 points.

Spirit recovers every frame gradually by 1, so every second without any extra spirit gains, you will regain 60 points of spirit every second.

Unlike most other fighting games, only special moves and supers are capable of dealing chip damage, but regular attacks cannot deal chip damage.
The damage you deal is affected by a few factors, which are increased or decreased based on the modifiers attached to them for the given situation, and can also stack. Damage output is affected by these four factors:

Whether you're standing (no modifier minus against Wyler) or airborne (+25% damage from base)
If you're in Desperation (+20%~ damage from base)
If the attack is a counterhit (+20%~ damage from base)
What color your Spirit meter is (for special moves only)

Wyler has a defense modifier of 12.5%, meaning attacks only deal 87.5% of their normal damage against him

Counterhit modifiers only stack on the ground since CH damage is not rewarded when the opponent midair, even if they were hit while attacking
Desperation can stack with either airborne or counterhit damage modifiers

Desperation + Counterhit = +44%~ damage from base
Desperation + Airborne = +50%~ damage from base

Attacks

Input Buffering

Besides the gatling system itself, the game allows players to buffer their inputs in some scenarios, even before their animation or attack is finished, so that it comes out immediately once they're able to act. However, it is currently not fully understood how or why the game allows players to buffer certain inputs during some scenarios, but not others.

How the game reads special move inputs

Special moves will not come out if you push both the direction and the button on the same frame. You must wait a minimum of one frame after pushing the direction in order for the special attack to come out.

Just Frame Misinputs

A few command normals in the game have a bug where doing a just frame - pushing both the direction and the buttons at the same time - will instead do a different attack. This affects only a few select moves, namely Rody's 2B converting into a 1B and Wang's 2AB into a 5AB, but it should be kept in mind nonetheless. The fix is simple - delay the button presses by one frame and this issue won't occur.

Airborne Opponents

Any attack that hits the opponent in the air will always leave them in a falling state that results in a normal knockdown, no matter what attack hits them or what the attack itself does otherwise. Weak attacks, such as 5A and 5B, lead to QKDs if the opponent is hit by said moves while airborne.

Corner Pushback

When attacking the opponent in the corner, you may sometimes notice that your character pushes themselves back with some attacks, most notably rush combos sometimes whiffing attacks they normally don't otherwise. This corner pushback is likely the game transferring a small portion of the pushback the opponent would face normally and instead putting it on the aggressor, thus pushing them back instead of the opponent.

The system's real purpose is likely SNK's attempt at trying to prevent corner infinites from happening, on top of the heavily reduced launch heights off of already juggled opponents.

Ranbu/Unblockable Super Trading

If two ranbu-type supers connect with each other on the same frame, player 1 will always win the exchange.

This also applies to Rody and Sinclairs' supers trading on the same frame. Player 1 will always win these exchanges.

Sinclair can also push past herself if both players activate super right next to each other, making both supers whiff.

Kasumi can trade with her own super, but Ultimate KO will not result from it if it connects on the same frame. Cho Kasane Ate travels through itself which is why it can trade.
If two Jin players activate super on the same frame next to each other, both supers will do nothing despite the overlap, and leave both players back in neutral afterwards.

Draw Games

In the event that both players draw during the first round, the match will skip to the final round. If they draw when one player has already scored a round, however, the player who has scored the first round already will win the match.
If both players draw in the final round, the game will initiate an extra round for them to settle the score. If, even during the extra round, both players manage to tie, the win is automatically given to player 1.

Player 1 Priority

This is already mentioned above for universal throws, as well as the Esoterics section with ranbu trading and draw games, but this info will also be listed here for simplicity's sake.

If two throws collide on the same frame, player 1 always wins the exchange and gets the throw.
If two ranbu supers collide, player 1 always wins the exchange and lands the ranbu super over player 2.
If a draw game occurs during the Extra Round, no matter what the result is, player 1 always wins the exchange (as far as it is currently known at least).

Player 2 Taunt Advantage

There is one extremely minor advantage player 2 has over player 1 regarding taunts. Whenever player 2 taunts, they always take away one extra point of spirit meter away from player 1, regardless of how long the taunt lasts for. The minimum amount a taunt takes away as player 1 is 681 points of spirit meter, however player 2 takes away a minimum of 682 points of spirit meter. In the grand scheme of things, this affects nothing so it's not an actual advantage, but it's worth noting.

Birthdays

Art of Fighting 3 shares a very unique, one-of-a-kind mechanic that does not appear in any other fighting game as far as we're concerned, and that is the birthday bonus. If the internal clock of the NeoGeo system is set on any given character's birthday, that same character receives an exclusive bonus for the entire day.

The game will also display a "Happy Birthday X" message on the title screen to celebrate the occasion, as well as display the message "Special Day" above the character's sprite on the character select screen.
The bonus they receive is they are immediately put into the desperation state at all times, regardless of how much health they have. However, all this results in is the regular 20% damage boost desperation already gives the player.
In order to use their super attack, they must still fall below the 25% health threshold.

It was originally believed that the character could use infinite meter and super attacks on their birthday, but this was the fault of both not bothering to lab it out to prove it as true and also years of spreading misinfo from forums and sites like GameFAQs. This misinfo even ended up in the initial general guide video created by Lichmassacre, but a correction has since been added to the pins of the comment section to correct this misinfo.
This misinfo has also lead to the false belief that running a tournament on said character's birthday is impossible, at least in the sense of keeping things fair as you'd either have to ban the character altogether, or not host the tournament to begin with. To reiterate, this is false. Regardless if it's the character's birthday or not, all you need to do is change the system's internal clock by one day and this issue is resolved, allowing for tournaments on a character's birthday. Even on emulators or netplay or Fightcade, this is possible. It only requires players know how to set the clock themselves by accessing the test menu.

Each character's birthday can be found on their respective pages, but here is also a quick summation of all ten dates, ordered by earliest to latest date:

Kasumi Todoh: March 29th
Wang Koh-San: April 17th
Lenny Creston: May 20th
Karman Cole: June 13th
Rody Birts: July 24th
Ryo Sakazaki: August 2nd
Jin Fu-Ha: September 4th
Wyler: October 22nd
Sinclair: November 14th
Robert Garcia: December 25th

Art of Fighting 3
General	FAQ Controls HUD Glossary System Training Mode
Characters	Jin Karman Kasumi Lenny Robert Rody Ryo Sinclair Wang Wyler